A short while back I posted with the title Entrecard Power Dropper for Hire and talked about the possibility that one could earn some decent money dropping cards for other folks. It was more a mental exercise than anything else, so I was a bit surprised when I was approached by a fellow Entrecarder with a request to drop cards for them for a week or so. I had previously done business with this person, having sold them 50,000+ ECs and so I agreed to do so more as a gesture of gratitude than as an income activity.

Honestly, dropping cards is not an activity that I enjoy and when asked how much I would charge to continue with this service, I deferred and did not give an answer. I realized that someone out there would do likely do it for $6 an hour...but I wasn't really interested for less than $20 an hour. In my prior post on this topic I suggested that it might be possible to earn that rate if one could drop 300 cards in 15 minutes, get a 2/3 return drop rate, charge each client $1.50 a day, and sell the ECs for $7 per 1000. Unfortunately, with the changes to the security system, it appears that even nimble-fingered card droppers are lucky to drop 300 cards in 30 minutes and the price of ECs is dropping (as I predicted), with some folks selling them in the Promotions Forum for $4 per 1000. Therefore, if one was to earn $20 an hour they would have to charge each client $8 a day...not an unreasonable rate based on the value of some people's time, but it represented a more difficult task to find 10 clients who were each willing to pony up $250 a month for some Entrecard traffic.

I also found that while I could power drop on my accounts (dropping back on the cards in the Drops Inbox is nice but not the best strategy) as part of my EC harvesting strategy, my clients would have higher expectations for performance and that meant more time and focus put into the selection of which widgets to drop on. Now we're talking about an hour a day per client and only $2 per hour of potential income from the sale of the ECs, so earning $20 an hour would be out of the question for all but a very select clientele. Really, how many bloggers would dig deep into their pockets to the tune of $18 an hour for Entrecard traffic?

It did occur to me that there are thousands of bloggers who would like to get an Entrecard traffic spike, but don't want to have to learn the ropes or spend the time doing all that card dropping (or both.) And getting traffic was just one function of having an Entrecard account...in fact, you don't need to actually have an Entrecard account as long as SOMEONE is pointing their Entrecard account to your blog. Hmmmm. What if...., what if I were to maintain ownership of the Entrecard account and "rent" out its traffic to someone for a week or a month? The system tracks User ID for ranking and card drops/ad prices, and the biggest challenge would be the fact that the URL would change...unless I were to just redirect it to the client's site.

I would own the Entrecard account and make sure that it got plenty of visits/drops, so that the client would get instant traffic. They would have to supply me with the 125x125 ad and I'd send them the widget code to put on their blog. They pay me for the rental period (in advance) and I'd keep all the ECs for future sale. They could even throw in some more cash and I'd buy ads for them. They would have to trust that they would get traffic, but with a few testimonials from other satisfied customers and my history in the Entrecard community, I think I could find some takers.

The tough spot is still how much to charge so that it is worth my time to drop cards for someone else's benefit. I just don't think that I can make it fly on an hourly basis or per dropped card, but maybe there is a price that someone would be willing to pay to experience an Entrecard traffic spike, like maybe $50 for a week? And if they want to continue on I could always just sell them that Entrecard account for a reasonable price. It's just an idea, and there are plenty of details that would have to be worked out, but I'll bet there are some folks who treat their blog like a business and $50 wouldn't be a big deal to see what all the buzz is about, especially when they would only have to spend a few minutes to get it going.

Whether or not I actually go ahead and follow through with this idea, I believe that eventually someone will, seeing as the Entrecard community is continuing to grow and generate more and more noise in the blogging world. Entrepreneurs abound and there are plenty of ways to make a buck with one's blog...or your blog, as the case may be.

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Several points.1) I think EC would pick up on the account rentals soon enough and start banning it. It'd be a shame though2) The dropper-for-hire definitely has potential, I wouldn't mind dropping 300 a day for say.. 10-15 bucks. But there will always be people doing it for lower, ugh.

It wouldn't be the first time that I've dragged Entrecard into uncharted waters...and they've been pretty good about giving me leeway to do reasonable business activities. And until Graham gets the Credit Exchange rolling we won't know how much can be charged to drop cards. The key will be to find business blogs where the owner understands the concept of paying for contract labor.